TOLLS COULD HELP CONGESTED HIGHWAYS

Tolls have been used to pay for roads and bridges since the early days of this nation. Pioneers heading into the vast areas beyond the Eastern Seaboard often found that the only route cutting through the wilderness was a toll road. In more recent times, some of the country's busiest highways have kept pace with ever-increasing demand by charging tolls.

In neighboring Kansas, a modern, divided, four-lane highway was built from Kansas City to the Oklahoma border south of Wichita using toll funding long before Congress ever thought of spending millions of dollars on a controlled-access highway in such a sparsely populated part of the country.

When the interstate highway system was launched during the Eisenhower administration, it was decided that this network of superhighways would be built with money from the highway trust fund, generated in large part by federal fuel taxes, rather than asking Americans to pay tolls. Over the years, however, any number of states have constructed toll roads that were later given interstate designations, provided they were built to federal standards. Motorists in Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and other states have paid tolls on major interstate routes similar to the Kansas Turnpike for years.

In some cases, toll roads make sense. Asking motorists to pay for a superhighway across Montana, for example, one toll at a time would be impractical. What would the toll have to be on such vast, low-volume stretches of pavement? A hundred dollars? Two hundred dollars?

But in particularly congested areas where federal and state dollars are hard-pressed to keep up with traffic volume, tolls might be a way to let those who use such highways to pay the cost of construction. Congress has authorized, for the first time, a pilot program that would allow interstate highway construction using tolls.

Given the long history of tolls in America -- ferries and bridges have frequently been financed with dimes and quarters -- it makes sense to look at this option as traffic congestion grows in so many areas of the country. Will Missouri ever use tolls? It's possible. Ask many commuters in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas if they would be willing to pay a little for each trip if it made getting to and from work easier. The answer would probably be an overwhelming yes.